BONESTELL THE MODEL-MAKER

All images copyright Bonestell Space Art.

Bonestell was in the habit of constructing models for many of his paintings. Some of these were meant as aids in working out the complex perspectives of spacecraft, while model landscapes were used as custom-made references for lunar and planetary landscapes. Often, photographs of the model landscapes were employed directly in his paintings---though this was a time-consuming technique he eventually abandoned.

 On this page are a number of models Bonestell constructed during his work on the Collier's series. He rarely found it necessary to create a full model-in-the-round. Instead, he created models built from only two or more intersecting planes that gave him the points he required to construct the spacecraft in perspective.

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